Not by a thing he’d said. By the idea of not going back. By the idea that Wednesday might not be Wednesday anymore.
She stood in her kitchen for a long time.
Then she went to the studio and stood in front of the canvas and didn’t paint.
Friday was Circle night. She’d go to Eleanor’s. She’d drink the wine. She would not talk about this.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Eleanor’s living room was the same as it always was on a Friday. Wine on the low table. The sliding doors cracked for the ocean. Nadine in her corner chair. Letty on the couch. Vivian in from the kitchen with a plate of something she’d bought and was passing off as homemade.
“These are from Whole Foods,” Nadine said, examining a cracker.
“They are from my kitchen.”
“Your kitchen doesn’t have a Whole Foods sticker on the bottom of the plate, Vivian.”
“I transferred them. That’s preparation.”
Margo took her spot—the armchair nearest the window. Vivian poured her a glass of wine with the usual generosity. Margo drank half of it before the room had finished settling, which was not something Margo normally did.
They talked, as they always did. AboutNadine’s niece in Portland who was already regretting it, a new bakery on Forest that Eleanor had opinions about, Letty’s granddaughter coming for a visit. Margo was quieter than quiet, and by the time the wine went around a second time, the room had stopped pretending not to see it.
Letty peered over her glasses. “Margo, what happened?”
“Nothing happened.”
“Last time you told us you weren’t imagining things. Now you look like you stopped sleeping.”
“I’m eighty. I always look like I stopped sleeping.”
Eleanor leaned forward. “You drank half your wine before anyone sat down. In thirty years I’ve seen you do that twice. Something happened.”
Margo looked at her glass.
“Bernie told me I don’t need to come anymore,” she said.
The room was quiet.
Nadine set her thermos down. Vivian stopped chewing. Letty’s hand came back to her lap.
“Tell us what he said,” Letty said. “The actual words.”
“He said the knee is good. The doctor cleared him. He’s walking, he’s cooking, he went to the hardware store and bought a hose nozzle.” She picked up her glass and set it down without drinking. “He said I set up a system to take care of him and the system worked and now he’s better. And that I don’t need to keep coming three times a week.”
“Those were his words,” Letty said, leaning forward. “What else?”
“He said if I’m coming because he had surgery, the surgery is over.” Margo smoothed a crease in her pants. “And if it’s something else, he’d like to know what it is.”
The room was quiet.
“Say that last part again,” Letty said.
“What?”
“The last thing he said.”
Margo looked at her wine. “If it’s something else, he’d like to know what it is.”
